Friday's Inspiration

Happy New Year
And may life provide you the opportunities to fulfill your dreams.

"I have arrived.
I am home.
In the here,
In the now.
I am solid.
I am free.
In the ultimate
I dwell."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thursday's Inspiration

Rabbit foot fern

"The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs'.
They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future."
_____ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Wednesday's Inspiration

"If you want something then you loose everything.
If you don't want anything then you already have everything."
_____ Seung Sahn

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Happiness....not in another place, but this place....
Not for another hour, but this hour.
_____ Walt Whitman

Monday's Message

"Do not look back. And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward___your destiny___are here and now."
_____ Dag Hammarskjold

Weekend Inspiration

Merry Christmas to my wonderful friends.

"Just don't seek from others,
Or you'll be far estranged from self.
I know go on alone;
Everywhere I meet it:
It now is me; I now am it."
_____ Dongshan Liangjie

Friday's Inspiration

"Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize; a blue sky, white clouds,
green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child...our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
_____ Yhich Nhat Hanh

Thursday's Inspiration

"Things pass....That I have seen. Life is what you make it now.
So let us put our energies into life."
____ U Kyi Maung

Wednesday's Inspiration

"To the one who knows how to look and feel,
Every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment."
_____ Alexandra David-Neel

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Taking off your shoes is a sacred ritual. It is a hallowed moment of remembering the goodness of space and time. It is a way of celebrating the holy ground on which you stand."
_____ Macrina Wiederkehr

Monday's Message

"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all,
Because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
_____ Krishnamurti

Weekend Inspiration

"I walk towards one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?
We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them;
When we are not serene, we go not to them."
_____ Henry David Thoreau

Friday's Inspiration

"Because I know that time is always time and place is always and only place,
And what is actual is actual for only one time,
And only for one place,
I rejoice that things are as they are...."
_____ T. S. Elliot

Thursday's Inspiration

"If for a moment we make way with our petty selves, wish no ill on anyone, apprehend no ill, cease to be but as a crystal which reflects a ray ---- what shall we not reflect! What a universe will appear crystallized and radiant around us.
_____ Henry David Thoreau

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Too make all life
more poetical, more sane
more living, loving
to experience
the true off all things
this moment.....
this moment.....
this moment."
_____ William Segal

Tuesday's Inspiration

"If a man or woman speaks or acts with a pure thought,
Happiness follows them, like a shadow that never leaves them.
_____ The Dhammapada

Monday's Message and our Christmas Tree

Christmas tree covered in tatting at night
and during the day.

"At the end of all things, the blessed will say,
We never lived anywhere but in heaven."
_____ C. S. Lewis

Weekend Inspiration

"People have a hard time of letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown,
they prefer suffering that is familiar."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Friday's Inspiration

"Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, Where as
a clever man guards his attention as his most prized possession."
_____ Buddha

Thursday's Inspiration

"Fill your mind with the meaningless stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things,
and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart."
_____ Marianne Williamson

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Always we hope someone else has the answer. Some other place will be better, it will all turn out. This is it.
No one else has the answer. No other place will be better, and it has already turned out."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Tuesday's Inspiration

"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is it's urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank."
_____ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Monday's Message

"The mature person pays attention to what
is happening in the innermost self."
_____ Tzu Ssu

Weekend Inspiration

Honeysuckle in bloom surrounding the tool shed.

"Listen to your life.
All moments are key moments."
_____ Frederick Buechner

Friday's Inspiration

"It is for us to make the effort.
The result is always in God's hands.
_____ Gandhi

Thursday's Inspiration

"The best preparation for a better life next year is a full,
complete, harmonious, joyous life this year."
_____ Thomas Dreier

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Zen is not some kind of excitement.
But concentration on our usual everyday routine."
_____ Shunryu Suzuki

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Spring passes, and one remember one's innocence, summer passes, and one remembers one's exuberance, autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence, winter passes, and one remembers one's perseverance."
_____ Yoko Ono

Monday's Message

Now this is whaat Ruth Perry's 2008 Celtic snowflake is supposed to look like. This snowflake was tatted using DMC Cordonnet size 30 Ecru thread.
"There's harmony and inner peace to be found in following a moral compass
that points in the same direction regardless of fashion or trend."
_____ Ted Koppel

Weekend Inspiration

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop like autumn leaves."
_____ John Muir

Friday's Inspiration

"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
_____ Hans Margolius

Thursday's Inspiration

Here is a picture of the two trees I have pruned out at the front of our house to make them more interesting. One is a boxwood bush that I turned into what the nearby kids call the slide. The other was a tall juniper that I pruned into a large cloud tree.

"Here it is-----right now.
Start thinking about it and you miss it."
_____ Huang Po

Wednesday's Inspiration

"There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which......is within the souls of men."
_____ Black Elk

Lesson Learned

This Celtic Snowflake was designed by Ruth Perry for the year 2008. I don't know about other experienced tatters but I can now tat without looking at my tatting very much or so I thought. I was watching a very interesting show on television and as you can see I made A mistake in my tatting. Oh well, they say each snowflake is original and this one sure is.

The Quote for the day is;
"Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not the voice of God.
Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear, undivided voice,
a voice that does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light and serenity."
_____ Henri F. Amiel

Monday's Message

"In the ultimate stillness light penetrates the whole realm; in the still illumination there pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the phenomenal world, everything is just like a dream."
_____ Han-shan Te-ch'ing

Weekend Inspiration

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought."
_____ Basho

Friday's Inspiration

"Cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability. If you accord everywhere with thorough clarity and cut off sharp corners without dependence on doctrines, you can be called a complete person."
_____ Hongzhi Zhengjue

Thursday's Inspiration

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Wednesday's Inspiration

"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things."
_____ William Wordsworth

Tuesday's Inspiration

"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order.
It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."
_____ Henry Miller

Monday's Message

"... the sacred is in the ordinary.... it is to be found in ones daily life, in ones neighbours, friends, and family, in ones own backyard... travel may be a flight from confronting the sacred-- this lesson can be easily lost. To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous."
_____ Abraham Maslow

Weekend Inspiration

This is a picture of some of the mosses growing in a garden.

"The morning glory which blooms for an hour differs not at heart from the great pine,
which lives for a thousand years."
_____ Alan Watts

Friday's Inspiration

"The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes and still return safely to its nest.
_____ John Ashbery

Thursday's Inspiration

To celebrate Remembrance day in Canada where we recognize veterans who fought in the war and are fighting in wars here is the poem In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae

Inspiration for today-
"Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles."
_____ Confucius

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Be broad-minded, whole, without relying on others.
_____ Hongzhi Zhebgjue

Tuesday's Inspiration

A nice spot to tat.

"With gentleness, overcome anger.
With generosity, overcome meanness.
With truth, overcome delusion."
_____ The Dhammapada

Monday's Message

"To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearences is to miss the source.
_____ Seng Ts'an

Weekend Inspiration

"Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we chose."
_____ Eknath Easwarran

Friday's Inspiration

"Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all."
_____ Earl Balfour